


Saving Grace

by vampiredragonfairy



Category: Original Work
Genre: Dystopia, Memory Alteration, Post-Apocalypse, Rebellion
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-13
Updated: 2018-08-13
Packaged: 2019-06-27 01:48:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,263
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15675579
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vampiredragonfairy/pseuds/vampiredragonfairy
Summary: Beatrix knows that she has hacked into the government's servers. Therefore, she is not surprised when she arrives home to special agents knocking on her door. Yet, they seem to want her for something other than her illicit hacking exploits.Adrian has worked as a mercenary for years with no regrets. His employers make a mistake when they send him after his childhood best friend. He is conflicted about whether to save her or follow one of his masters' orders.





	Saving Grace

Her apartment door clicks closed behind her. She’s safe. The passing agents seemed to have been too busy to spare Beatrix a passing glance. Tossing her bag to the floor she heaves a sigh of relief. The light flickers on to show the clean apartment, or as clean as it gets. The place has the thin permanent layer of grime that covers this part of the city.

She walks into the bathroom and flashes a hand across the motion sensor. The light pops on. Looking into the tarnished mirror shows she needs to dye her hair again. Not tonight though. She has tomorrow off duty. I’ll just touch up my appearance then.

While brushing her teeth a thought suddenly struck. What were agents doing here in the first place? She’d never seen them in the building this late even on inspection days. Maybe Simon thought someone is trying to kill him again. Though the last few times they had sent building security to check on his delusions. So what are agents doing here? Well, she thought, as long as they don’t come knocking on my door I really don’t care what they’re doing here.

Her feet move on the normal route to bed. Reaching out she presses the A key on her computer shutting off all the unnecessary electronics in the apartment until triggered again.

Curling up on top of the sheets she falls asleep while something she can’t identify nags at the back of her mind.

v

The lights suddenly flash on. Someone on the other side of the door curses as the iron safety bars slide into place. She grins, teeth bared in a feral smile. They thought they were the only ones who could access those. Scooping up her computer into the bag she had packed in case of this happening, she looks out the window onto the fire escape.

“Beatrix Grace open this door in the name of the Empire!” someone yells from the hallway, the sound only serving to spur her on.

The window groans as it grinds up on rusty hinges. Stepping out onto the fire escape she yanks the hidden cord inside the window shade. The window comes sliding down to seal shut with the layer of tangy super glue extruded into the frame. The resounding crash of the door hitting the floor tells Beatrix it’s past time to leave and blend into the city.

The steps creak as she rushes down to the garbage-strewn, rust permeated alleyway that leads to Oak Crest Street. Poking her head out the mouth of the alley, Beatrix looks for agents who could be stationed outside of the building. No one! 

She slips onto the street and moves out into the grimy, neon-lit city.

v

The man in black moves through the room, his presence casts a shadow across it. Agent McLargo walks up holding a black case report.

“It seems she got out the window, somehow glued it shut, and left via the fire escape before our team could get in.” McLargo is one of the few agents who could speak normally in his presence.

“It is to be a chase then. Very well, Beatrix Grace, if that is how you wish it to be, then it will be. Let the games begin.”

The man in black’s voice sends a shiver up every member of the inspection crew’s spines.

v

The normal mist of fumes and constant drizzle do not deter people in this part of the city. People walk in and out of shops, advertise, talk, and go to work even at this late hour. Blending into a crowd is no problem for Beatrix since she’s been doing it her whole life. From avoiding bullying in school to undue attention on the streets now, she is an expert at blending in like a chameleon.

Making her way toward an unused alley between two buildings she checks her watch. At the rate she is moving it should take the agents about twenty minutes to pinpoint her location. Between now and then she will be long gone from where they think she is.

Reaching the alley Beatrix slides in-between two crates. She reaches into her bag and removes a small box of first-aid supplies. Among bandages, disinfectants needle, thread, and other medical supplies are several sanitized scalpels. Pulling out a scalpel, a wad of bandages, and a cloth with numbing ointment spread upon it, she rolls up her sleeve.

Just below her shoulder is a small ID chip with deadly power. Used by the government as a tracking device for all of its citizens, the ID chip could lead her straight to her death.

Swiping the numbing cloth over the spot on her arm where the chip had been implanted at her birth, Beatrix takes a steadying breath. The scalpel cuts deep into the skin on her arm, it hits something hard and unyielding. Pain does not come from the cut, she has been cut many times, some worse than this; the pain comes from pulling out the ID chip which has been embedded for twenty-one years.

The small, silver, blood-soaked chip lay in her palm. Resting the innocent looking device on the ground, Beatrix packs up her supplies. Taking the chip in hand she heads to the mouth of the alley. All she had to do now was wait for a drunken patron of the business to come out of the building next to her.

A man in a rather nice suit comes stumbling out of the bar. He doesn’t notice her hand slip out and deposit the chip into his pocket. Problem number one taken care of; problem number two to solve.

She can’t stay long in the city, but tonight she needs somewhere to rest and recuperate. Not to a co-worker’s place, but someone who came into her work many a time. Beatrix heads out to look for the one person who could help her tonight.

v

The man in black strives not to destroy the whole uptown apartment. How had she known about the ID chip? No one knows except the people the government tells. The man, tied to the chair before him, groans and opens his eyes.

“Mr. Arans I have a few questions for you on behalf of the Empire. Where were you this evening?”

"I was at my club! Ask anybody there. They’ll tell you.” Mr. Arans is frightened. Good. They always talk when they’re frightened.

The man in black holds up a gloss photo of Beatrix Grace. “Do you know who this is?”

“No! Should I? I don’t recognize her at all!” Mr. Arans voice trembles slightly, not telling the whole truth.

“But you have seen her, haven’t you.”

“Yes, I have seen her. She works at Carter’s Computers, that’s where I buy all my equipment for the office. She’s always there, willing to help. She knew where everything was and could fix anything too.”

“Did you ever meet outside of work? Say,” he pauses as if thinking, “tonight perhaps?”

“I might have passed her on the street but other than that, no.” Mr. Arans is telling the truth. The man in black would have loved to arrest him on a conspirators charge.

The man in black leaves the room to find another lead on his prey.

v

She’d never been to this part of the city before. The streets and buildings are cleaner than on the south side. The river runs clear here, uncluttered with debris from people who have nowhere else to put it. Most people here have never been very deep into the South-side. If they had maybe they wouldn’t show their wealth so easily.

The ivy-covered, marble structure in front of her is a testament to humanity’s pride in its wealth. Fox Grove Apartments is the most luxurious place to live in the city and cost a fortune in rent.

She walks cautiously up to the ornately carved glass doors and looks for the messaging panel. The black screen isn’t hard to miss with its silver frame and buttons with gold filigree. She presses the button to apartment 56.

The screen turns blue and says to wait for her call to be picked up. The picture changes to a shot of a cream hallway and a man standing in the camera’s line of sight. Jeremy Carter has long red hair tied back in a horse’s tail, blue eyes, and tanned skin.

“Hi, it’s Beatrix.”

Jeremy smiles. “Hi, I thought you said you didn’t come to this side of town Trix.”

“I guess I changed my mind.” She paused for a moment. “Can I come up and talk?”

“Sure! Just let me come down and open the doors for you.” He shut off the call.

Beatrix waits for five long and tiring minutes until Jeremy comes out of the elevator into the lobby. He pulls open the doors to admit her. She walks onto the beautifully patterned marble floor.

Jeremy smiles his crooked grin at her freaked out expression. “We aliens like to have our creature comforts in our living spaces. But we don’t like to have mess, clutter, and cramping while having those comforts.”

“Of course you little aliens do. Meanwhile we earthlings have to scrounge for our comforts, which is why you find them messy, cluttered, and cramped.” She stays completely poker face throughout this.

“I submit to you earthling! With your superior wisdom, how can any alien doubt that you are the superior being?”

“Pride.” They both break out in gales of laughter.

“Well, neither one of us has lost any sense of humor have they? Come on up to the apartment and tell me what has brought you to my humble abode.”

v

After what seemed like an eternity, Beatrix is seated on a leather couch in a spacious living room. The walls are paneled with maple wood that sets off the paintings hanging on them.

Jeremy sits down on the couch opposite her. “So why have you come to see a person who doesn’t know a thing about anything?”

She decides to tell the truth. “I got an unexpected eviction from my apartment.” Jeremy gives a whistle. “Yeah, and no clue why. I paid all my bills and wasn’t breaking the law. So no reason to evict me.”

“They could have gotten wind of our forays into the government’s database. Though you cover our tracks so well they couldn’t have found us. Much less one of us and not the other.”

“In that case, we both need to run. What time is the next train out of here?” Beatrix asks.

“Let me look.” Jeremy pulls out a train timetable. “At 1:00 a.m., that’s in ten minutes.”

“Do you need to pack a bag?”

“Would you need to?” Jeremy runs into the master bedroom. Always be prepared to run when you’re doing something lawful but yet something the government wouldn’t like.

Jeremy runs back into the living room with a black duffle bag in hand. He yanks open the French windows and climbs out onto the fire escape. She gets up and climbs onto the fire escape. Jeremy slides the window closed and begins to descend toward the street.

“Can we reach the nearest train station in time?” Beatrix asks.

“It’s just around the corner, so it shouldn’t be a problem. Why do you ask?”

“I have the strangest feeling that if we don’t get on that train we’re both going into federal custody.”

v

The train schedule had been left on the table in the living room. How clumsy of them.

“Sir, there’s no security footage of them leaving the building. They must have gone out the window and down the fire escape. They could be anywhere by now.”

“No, Agent McLargo. They went to the train station. Stay here and pack up. Leave no trace that we were ever here.” The man in black turns away and walks out of the apartment.

He walks into the elevator bank and presses the down arrow. What don’t we know about her? Why would Jeremy Rose run with her? I need more information than what I have been given.

The elevator dings open and he strides out into the lobby. The man in black yanks open the door and everyone snaps to attention. He jumps into the waiting car, slams on the gas, and shoots off toward the train station.

v

They get to the train station just as the train is pulling into the station. She and Jeremy run onto the last car and find all the compartments empty. The automatic tiller asks for a ticket or money. Both of them give it five dollars to get their seats. They slide into a compartment and collapse into the seats.

“We made it!” Jeremy grins and lets out a sigh of relief.

“Don’t rejoice yet. They can still stop the train from leaving. And I still have a bad feeling that we’re going to be caught.”  
He sobered immediately. They both waited in a tense silence until the doors slid closed and the soft hum of the engines start.

To try to lay her fears to rest she looks back at the train station, hoping to see it empty. Unfortunately, agents have caught up to them and are climbing out of their cars. The foremost of them has dark brown hair, ice blue eyes, and wears loose black clothing. His face stirs a memory that she can’t quite reach but she knows is there. Before it can surface the train speeds into the night.


End file.
